The Art & Passion of Bagel Making with Ozark Mountain Bagel Co.

Local owners of Ozark Mountain Bagel Co. joined us to share their origin story, more on the fourth location expansion, and some funky bagel combinations.

Owners Bill and Sheila Ford, along with their son Tyler, bring authentic New York-style bagels to Northwest Arkansas with a motto of spreading joy, love, and cream cheese. Originally serving bagels in Rainbow Curve off Walton, it now serves Northwest Arkansas across 4 locations!  

Tune in now to hear more about their story, bagel preferences, and the new location! 

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Transcript

Speaker 1 0:10

Welcome to Visit Bentonville's podcast in New American Town. As always, we're coming to you from Hackston Road Studios off the bustling Bentonville Square, and I'm your host, alan Woody, joining me in the studio. Today we have Bill and Sheila Ford of Ozark Mountain Bagel Company. Thank you, guys, for joining us today.

Speaker 2 0:27

Well, thanks so much for having us. Thank you.

Speaker 1 0:29

It's absolutely our pleasure and I love talking to people in our culinary community because we just have such an awesome vibrant restaurant scene here in Northwest Arkansas in general, in Bentonville specifically. Tell us why Bagels. What about that made you want to create this kind of art? I call it art, I'm sorry when you blend cream cheese like that it's art?

Speaker 2 0:53

Well, she's the cream cheese blender.

Speaker 1 0:55

Okay, well, she's an artist there she is, you can tell her. I said so.

Speaker 2 0:59

Well, woody, I was a horrible student in school.

Speaker 3 1:03

Me too.

Speaker 2 1:04

Oh good, we have something in common. So I spent more time in a bar than I did in class.

Speaker 1 1:11

Me too.

Speaker 2 1:13

And gosh, this was 1981 in Stillwater, oklahoma, and there was a bagel shop there that was just. I got pistols firing from the studio in there, noted.

Speaker 1 1:29

Yes, no pokes.

Speaker 2 1:31

But so this was a Brooklyn owned bagel shop and you go in there and get these remarkable, remarkable bagels, but you'd also get this banter. Just it was so fun to go in there and we had a family. Really young I went to work, but I always had a dream about opening something that interacted with the community, and I specifically talked about bagels several times and how we got to bagels. I'll let Sheila maybe fill you in on that.

Speaker 3 2:04

Well, so what he didn't say? He worked oil and gas at a refinery for 30 years and I was a teacher, elementary teacher. Okay, what grade Kindergarten first and second.

Speaker 1 2:18

You had earned your stripes, haven't you?

Speaker 2 2:20

That's how she deals with me. Yes, running a business was nothing for you.

Speaker 1 2:23

You were just like hey, these people listen.

Speaker 3 2:27

So I was on a run with my principal, who was a really good friend of mine, and she said, hey, you want to open a bagel shop. And I said, well, I don't necessarily, but talk to Bill. He's always wanted to open something and we actually talked about bagels. So we got home from the run and she said you want to open a bagel shop? And he said, yeah, sure, let's do it. And she goes no, I'm serious, I really would like to. And she's like let's do it. And after about 20 minutes of going back and forth and her saying I really want to do this, he said let's do it. What don't you understand?

Speaker 1 2:59

Let's do it. I've said yes many times.

Speaker 2 3:01

What don't you understand about? Yes.

Speaker 3 3:04

So there is a new bagel shop in Oklahoma City at the time called Old School Bagel, and our friend Shelly said, you know, she wanted to go talk to them about bringing bagels back to Stillwater because the old New York bagel had long been out of business. And so Bill and Shelly went to Oklahoma City and said, hey, we'd like to bring bagels back to Stillwater. And that's kind of how it started. And we brought bagels back to Stillwater and so that's how we learned to bagel.

Speaker 1 3:33

We learned to bagel. Yes, I love it.

Speaker 2 3:36

Opened kind of under these guys umbrella and we had a shop in Stillwater from 2009 to 2016 and I still worked in the refinery at that time, worked rotating shift work. It was a crazy seven years. But then I retired at 55 and we were kind of looking at what was next and had kind of fallen in love with the Bentonville area and decided we'd just go out on our own and start from scratch and open a bagel shop.

Speaker 1 4:07

Now we're going to get into that a little bit more, okay, but something just crossed my mind to ask and you guys are the experts what makes a bagel great, what sets one bagel apart from another bagel? Is that a tough, tough question?

Speaker 3 4:24

Well, I, think I mean a bagel is a basic recipe for a bagel. It's not like you could go crazy. You can with flavors, obviously, but the standard bagel recipe is flour, water, yeast ice salt, milk malt. So you know, to get a true New York bagel which is what we say we have New York style bagel, it's boiling it and then baking it. If you don't boil it, I had no idea.

Speaker 2 4:56

Yeah, water boil they. The individual bagels will boil for probably 30 seconds to a minute, depending on what the bagel is, and then from there they go. Is that how you?

Speaker 1 5:09

get that outside texture, that perfect gummy crispy blend, that's it, that's right. That's it. This is my all time favorite podcast because I never. I love food. I never knew that that's so cool.

Speaker 2 5:20

Well, and we, we love when people will come into the shop and, you know, ask specific questions, because we'd love to take them in the back and kind of show them what goes on behind the curtain, because we'd rather share. You know how we do it and what we do and you know it's just, it's fun to share that with people.

Speaker 1 5:38

People who are great at things can tell you how to do it, and do so confidently, because you can't be great too Like, or the likelihood is low, so it's like I'll tell you exactly how I do this.

Speaker 3 5:52

There, enjoy Well it is very time consuming and there it's kind of part science, part art, like with any baking you guys are both in great shape, so I'm guessing there's a lot of needing.

Speaker 2 6:05

Most of it is done with a machine that makes the bagels.

Speaker 3 6:09

I'd take all the credit for it Okay, yeah, yeah, I need dough for four hours a day and we also have to say, as we just told you, we do not have restaurant background, we don't have culinary background, we really can't even hardly cook at all, but we have great people.

Speaker 1 6:27

There you go.

Speaker 3 6:28

You can.

Speaker 1 6:29

Well, that's the key to managing anything.

Speaker 3 6:31

Well, we, we were very blessed to find the young man who makes our bagels, like right after we opened here, and he is extraordinary. And we have a great baker, so great people making us look good when we don't really. I love that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 6:48

Well, my dad told me a long time ago, if you want to be a leader, you have to give credit and take responsibility. When things are going great, you've got to tell everybody about the people that make it great, and when things are going bad, you have to take responsibility for that and make sure to protect your great people from that. So I really appreciate the fact that you want to shine light on the people that are making these great bagels.

Speaker 2 7:11

You know, when a team succeeds, a great leader doesn't have to wave the flag that it was them, amen, they know. But if you kind of the top three motivators of people at work or interesting work, feeling of being in on things, explaining the why, and then, lastly, full appreciation for work done and when you can, truly and we love the people that work for us so so much, I mean they truly make us look great and so we're so thankful for them, as Sheila said, so that's really cool.

Speaker 1 7:51

Ozark Mountain Bagel Company is what we're talking about. I don't think we've named the business yet. So Ozark Mountain Bagel Company, that's what we're talking about. And you guys talk about motivation, mindset a little bit, but there's motivation all over your store, on the napkins, on the walls. Tell us a little bit about where the motivational quotes and spirit came from.

Speaker 3 8:11

Well, he's always been a quote guy he's. I mean, he has a quote for everything. And then as a teacher, I used quotes as part of my discipline, as part of just our classroom community, and so quotes have always been a big part of our life. And when we're looking at our empty napkin dispensers, thinking they were kind of boring, we're just thought, hey, let's put some quotes on there. And it's just amazing, people take pictures of the quotes, write them down. We get ideas for quotes all the time and it's just turned into a really cool way to connect with people. Sheila, what's your favorite quote?

Speaker 1 8:53

Oh my gosh.

Speaker 3 8:56

Come back to me, come back to me.

Speaker 1 8:58

Okay, Bill, what's your favorite quote?

Speaker 2 9:00

One of my favorites is our greatest fear should not be a failure, but of succeeding in things in life that don't really matter. I truly think that the best thing you can do is so into other people, and I love to tell people and just the analogy the same stones you can build a wall with, you can build a bridge with. What do you want to be A bridge builder or wall builder? I mean, we need more people that want to build bridges between people and love on people and build community.

Speaker 1 9:42

And she was wonderful at that. Now I thought that was good and he gave you a lot of time there.

Speaker 3 9:49

He did, and it's like picking your favorite child.

Speaker 1 9:52

It depends on what I'm going to do. It's Joey right now. Yeah, exactly Right now.

Speaker 3 9:57

Because it depends.

Speaker 1 9:58

I'm asking you right now. We're in the moment.

Speaker 3 10:01

What's the one? I'm not going to get it right. The entirety of the universe is made up of others except for one trifling exception. I didn't say it right, but basically you're the exception. The whole universe is made up of others.

Speaker 2 10:18

With one trifling exception.

Speaker 3 10:21

That's me, that's right.

Speaker 2 10:22

Oh dog on it. It's not you. I'm always the problem. Yeah, it's me. No, it's me. Yeah. Well, this got off the rails really fast. I just started fighting.

Speaker 1 10:31

I really like that. Who interacts with that more? Your clients or your customers or your employees? Because I do think walking into a building every day where you're surrounded by some sort of positivity is powerful. Do you find that that really impacts your people as well? I think, In kind of an organic way.

Speaker 3 10:54

Right, yes, definitely, and I mean we have always asked them to find quotes. Something is speaking to you, let us know so we can switch them out every once in a while.

Speaker 2 11:08

It's so fun Because we tell the kids, our employees no drama. We're not going to have any drama here. We're not going to talk about each other except in a positive way. We're not going to talk about customers, anything like that. We're going to lift each other up and I'd love to sit back on a busy day and listen to our kids thank each other. Thank you for doing that and authentically mean it, and I mean it's so fun to watch them.

Speaker 1 11:44

In an environment where they're nurtured, they feel respected and appreciated. They give that. I think it's very natural for people to give what they get, and if that's anger, negativity or lies and falsehood, that ends up being what you give, and when you're being poured into with positivity and love and nurturing, then that is. It's very easy to pour that back out of your cup too, and it's a beautiful way to pass it on.

Speaker 2 12:12

Yeah, and I think for a lot of them it's counterintuitive that they think that if they pour themselves out for others they're going to get empty. But it's just the opposite when you pour yourself out for others, you actually get filled.

Speaker 1 12:26

There's no doubt about it, and anybody that's going through a tough time find a way to help somebody else. Oh right, no doubt I went through a very tough period of depression not too long ago, and one of the things that really helped pull me out of that other than support for my people was definitely getting the opportunity to help others, and it was amazing at how fast that corner turns. When you're really pouring into other people, they give it back to you tenfold, whether they know it or not.

Speaker 2 12:54

That's right, that's right. So do you have a favorite quote, woody?

Speaker 1 12:58

Oh man, you're playing my game against me.

Speaker 1 13:01

See how's the deal Well, actually the John Woody quote John Woody is my dad of give credit and take responsibility. That is kind of a way that I try to live my life. If something goes bad, I want to get out in front of it. I want to be responsible for that, because I can't learn if I don't take responsibility. I can't get better at something that I don't admit I'm not good at. So if I want to be the greatest version of me possible, I have to have that mindset.

Speaker 2 13:33

So well said.

Speaker 1 13:34

That's my favorite quote, I guess, and if somebody said it before my dad, I'm not aware. There you go.

Speaker 2 13:39

We're going to give him credit. I like it.

Speaker 1 13:41

He's a Marine so it might have been some drill instructor or something like that, but for me that's a straight John Woody quote. You guys have great combinations with different things, because that's the interesting thing about a bagel I don't want to see it feels like a blank slate, like it is there to deliver whatever the artist wants to deliver. So tell me a little bit about some of your favorite combinations and some of your weirdest and wildest.

Speaker 3 14:07

Got lots of weirdest. Oh, I love weird.

Speaker 1 14:09

Weirdest is my favorite, so let's go.

Speaker 3 14:11

OK, go with that.

Custom Bagel Creations and New Locations

Speaker 1 14:12

Yeah, run with it.

Speaker 3 14:13

Well, we always get a lot of interesting blocks and cream cheese varieties.

Speaker 1 14:21

I do love blocks.

Speaker 3 14:23

And this is one of the differences. So we had a bagel shop in Stillwater for the seven years. So most of our clientele were OSU college students and most of them were hungover. So anyway, when we came here we were a little surprised. People were very just wanted more custom instead of just everybody gets a plain bagel American cheese, you know sort of thing.

Speaker 3 14:49

So the way we do our menu, it's all custom. So you're picking the bagel, you're picking the cream cheese, you're picking everything that goes on it, and oh, this is going to get fun yeah you get a lot of interesting blocks and cream cheese, like maybe blueberry bagel with chive and onion cream cheese, and then the locks.

Speaker 1 15:07

That sounds awful.

Speaker 3 15:09

It, it. That's the point. You don't ever say that.

Speaker 2 15:12

I don't even know why it's interesting. But you'll get the ticket and you'll go to the register person and say are you?

Speaker 1 15:20

sure. I was just going to ask if you ever been like, are you sure? Yeah, a lot, we're like real yeah. Because I remember the first tattoo I ever got. I really didn't think it'd be that easy to get one Walked in, told him what I wanted. He's like right on, starts drawing on me. I'm like there's no speech.

Speaker 2 15:36

Yeah.

Speaker 1 15:37

Are you sure you want this? It's permanent.

Speaker 2 15:40

No, so show me the money.

Speaker 1 15:43

There you go. You're going to pay for the bagel. Make it your way.

Speaker 3 15:46

That's right. Probably the strangest one I've had is a French toast with Olive cream cheese, which is cinnamon, sugar, nutmeg, right. A French toast basically has, and then green olive cream cheese.

Speaker 1 16:01

I do not see that going to know and. I salty and sweet.

Speaker 3 16:05

There's something to be said for that, for sure, savory, sweet is awesome, but green olive and French toast. And I asked several times Are you sure? Sure, I've never, I've never done this before, are you sure? And afterwards he came back he said you should recommend that to people. It was awesome.

Speaker 1 16:22

Have you tried it?

Speaker 3 16:23

No, and I said I would never recommend that either. I just try it just because I did that.

Speaker 1 16:30

I try things ever since grade school. I was that kid. They're chanting.

Speaker 2 16:36

Oh nice, yeah, it's a rough waiter and five bucks. But we have people that Put combination together, that it ends up on the menu at times, too, just because it's something that we would not have necessarily done, like a French toast bagel With bacon, egg and oh yeah, and then add jalapeno cream cheese.

Speaker 1 17:00

Whoa. And now I can actually see that being really good, because you got the sweetness of the bagel, you got the savory of the cream, chur the the eggs, and then you've got the bacon on top, and then you we throw in some jalapeno.

Speaker 2 17:13

Yeah, yeah, and now I'm excited. Yeah, that's a good one. That's a good one that that did make it to the menu.

Speaker 1 17:19

What's your favorite breakfast bill?

Speaker 2 17:21

I Love the honey oat bagel. I say it's the most underappreciated sausage, egg and pepper jack cheese very nice Sheila.

Speaker 3 17:32

My favorite bagel is the cranberry, orange walnut bagel, which our son calls the old lady bagel. So I Actually get it.

Speaker 1 17:42

Yeah, I'm sorry, I got it, but I get it.

Speaker 3 17:44

Yeah that, but that is my favorite with sausage and egg.

Speaker 1 17:49

Very, very, very good. All right now.

Speaker 2 17:52

now I'm all hungry and everything and we should have brought bagels Well in the afternoon, but we actually sold out the bagels.

Speaker 3 17:57

It was a good day. Yeah, it was a good day.

Speaker 1 17:59

Tell me a little bit about that. I'd love to touch on that. You sold out of bagels. You are not a chain. You're making your bagels in-house every day. Now a lot of people feel inconvenienced when a restaurant sells out of something, and I am not one of them. I thoroughly appreciate that. You're ordering a finite amount of material to make these things and you make them at a very high quality and therefore sometimes you just run out right and that's like gotta be the best day ever for you guys.

Speaker 3 18:28

It is a good problem to have, but it can be a problem. It's not everybody Understands sure they're just like just make more, just make more, and it's not that easy. Right and we also don't want to waste and be throwing away, you know at the end of the day. But so and we never know our two people gonna come today and buy a dozen bagels because that wipes us out. Or 50 people gonna come and one a dozen bagels, and so when you get those dozens, that wipes you out.

Speaker 1 18:56

You know, yeah, then you gotta move right through it. So, if I do like, if I've got a business group get together or something in the morning, would it be better? Would it serve you guys better if I call ahead a day or two? We love when they do that and for them.

Speaker 2 19:14

If they call ahead, they walk right to the front of the line.

Speaker 3 19:17

It's ready for them. They grab and go and get exactly what they want, exactly what's available.

Speaker 1 19:23

Yes, very nice, so tell us a little bit more about that new location.

Speaker 3 19:27

Well, I was just going to say that At the new location you can actually watch the bagels being made.

Speaker 1 19:35

I love that.

Speaker 3 19:36

so you can watch the dough runner that's what we call the person who's actually mixing the bagels and running them to the former, so you can watch him do his thing. And then we have a window over by the kettle where we're boiling and baking the bagel. So that's kind of a cool thing at the new location.

Speaker 1 19:55

I really want to see. That is really neat. I love, I love watching anything be made. I just find it fascinating. But food is art to me, and so watching people make food and art. Where is the new location? Talk to me about all of your locations.

Speaker 2 20:09

So the original location is on Rainbow Curve on Walton.

Speaker 1 20:14

Which is a great location, by the way it is.

Speaker 2 20:16

It is and it's been open. It opened in 2017. Then, just right before the pandemic, we opened the square which was that had to be very convenient. Brilliant on our part. We're not the sharpest tools in the shed sometimes.

Speaker 1 20:32

You've got to give yourself more credit. Nobody saw that coming.

Speaker 2 20:35

No, no, that was not something you just predict.

Speaker 1 20:38

Give yourself some break.

Speaker 2 20:40

One thing that really worked out for us we learned to operate more efficiently. We were able to keep every employee that wanted to stay impressive Employed, employed, which was great. We had some people that wanted to step away, and we totally support them for that, and then welcomed them back when they were comfortable. But our product lends itself to that grab and go which we you know some of these fine dining places. I don't know how they did it, so kudos to them to survive that.

Speaker 1 21:16

Well, good job on you for finding the market and keeping it, because that's not easy to do. When everything's in flux too, that's very hard to do.

Speaker 2 21:24

Our patrons were amazing.

Speaker 1 21:27

Very cool. Where's the new location?

Speaker 2 21:29

It is about Tiger and Walton. Okay, If you're sitting in the bronze drive-thru just off of North Walton, you'd be looking right at us. It's the old junk building where the junk headband started. We're trying really hard not to call it old junk bagels.

Speaker 1 21:48

It just that just doesn't have a nice name to it. It's a different vibe than Ozark Mountain Bagel.

Speaker 2 21:53

Company it is, I think you made the right call. Thank you. With Ozark Mountain Bagel Company, and then we have a location in Johnson, okay very good yeah, just on Johnson Mills.

Speaker 1 22:03

So getting out into Washington County a little bit A little bit. Yeah, very cool. Well, I'm so glad you guys took the time to come talk with us today.

Speaker 2 22:11

I've really enjoyed it. Thank this making this so comfortable and sharing your John Woody quote.

Speaker 1 22:18

No problem, I'll write it down, okay we'll put it on a napkin dispenser.

Speaker 2 22:21

Oh, that'd be amazing. That'd be awesome.

Speaker 1 22:23

I can't wait. Well, thank you so much for coming and thank you everyone for listening. Remember you can catch all of our new American Town podcast episodes on streaming channels, following our social platforms or going to visit Bentonvillecom. And don't forget follow Visit Bentonville on Facebook, instagram, twitter, linkedin, youtube and TikTok. We've got many exciting events coming to Bentonville in 2024. Check out our event calendar and plan your trip today. Thanks for tuning in. We'll see you next time.